This one is dedicated to Michael Connelly:
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), The FBI, and the CIA are all trying to prove that they are the best at apprehending criminals. The President decides to give them a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it.
The CIA goes in.
They place animal informants throughout the forest.
They question all plant and mineral witnesses.
After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in.
After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies.
The rabbit had it coming.
The LAPD goes in.
They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear.
The bear is yelling: “Okay! Okay! I’m a rabbit! I’m a rabbit!”
For those golf fans among you who have ever pondered the matter, as have I, Bubba Watson’s given forename is not in fact ‘Bubba’ but Gerry. Most pro golfers like to have a URP (Unique Recognition Point). The late lamented Payne Stewart always wore the colours of the NFL franchise closest to where each week’s tournament was played, and plus two trousers to aid the colour blind. Gary Player always wore black. Jesper Parnevik wore a baseball cap with the brim wrong way round. Jack Nicklaus, in his youth, was a fat blond kid with a crew cut who wore awful sweaters that made him look even fatter. Arnold Palmer had an aura the size of America. Seve had charisma to match that of Muhammad Ali. Lee Trevino never stopped wise-cracking to the crowd regardless of the effect it had on his playing partners. Gerry Watson, it seems, relies on a questionable nickname. I wonder why, as he can be identified easily, as the guy who has furthest to walk to reach his tee shot.
Sometimes the good guys win. Nothing against French football managers or German golfers, but what odds would you have got five days ago against a treble of Motherwell clattering Celtic 2 — 0, Birmingham winning the Carling Cup, and Luke Donald winning the Accenture Matchplay Championship. I couldn’t be happier for Stuart McCall and Alex McLeish, who can finally be forgiven for leaving the Fir Park job to lead Hibs to relegation that same season, and most of all for LD who took on the best golfers on the planet, played six matches in five days, and remarkably was never behind in any of them.
Quiet day yesterday, reflecting on an excellent Saturday evening as guests of Sue and David, Them Next Door. Nice one, Shirl.
A story I’ve been sent from Queensland. True? You tell me.
Recently a routine Police patrol car parked outside a local neighbourhood pub late in the evening. The officer noticed a man leaving the bar so intoxicated that he could barely walk.
The man stumbled around the car park for a few minutes, with the officer quietly observing. After what seemed an eternity and trying his keys on five vehicles. The man managed to find his car, which he fell into. He was there for a few minutes as a number of other patrons left the bar and drove off. Finally he started the car, switched the wipers on and off (it was a fine dry night). Then flicked the indicators on, then off, tooted the horn and then switched on the lights.
He moved the vehicle forward a few metres, reversed a little and then remained stationary for a few more minutes as some more vehicles left. At last he pulled out of the car park and started to drive slowly down the road. The Police officer, having patiently waited all this time, now started up the patrol car, put on the flashing lights, promptly pulled the man over and carried out a random breathalyser test.
To his amazement the breathalyser indicated no evidence of the man’s intoxication.
The Police officer said “I’ll have to ask you to accompany me to the Police station – this breathalyser equipment must be broken.”
“I doubt it,” said the man, “tonight I’m the designated decoy”.
With old Colonel Gaddafi unravelling before our eyes over the last few days, his son Saif has been grabbing most of the air time. Clearly he is seen as the acceptable public face of the regime. I wonder how many people share my view that with every public utterance he sounds more and more like Saddam’s hugely entertaining information minister, Comical Ali. However, Saif is not to be under-rated. He has three degrees, the most recent being a PhD awarded by the London School of Economics. Understanding the title of his thesis, ‘The Role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions: from ‘soft power’ to collective decision-making?’ is worthy of a doctorate in its own right. Shortly after it was awarded, Saif pledged £1.5 million to support the work of an LSE project. Saif’s claims to respectability can only have credence when he is set alongside his brothers. Mutassim, who was exiled in Egypt for some time, was recently seen shaking the hand of Hillary Clinton and is the head of the National Security Council, dad’s field operative, you might say, Saadi is a failed (very) professional footballer who now runs the Libyan Football Federation, and there’s one called Hannibal who has a track record of bad behaviour across Europe and who seems to be personally responsible for the state of near-hostilities that exists between Libya and Switzerland. This would all be risible, but for one disturbing fact: these guys hold the power of life and death over thousand of people and are currently exercising it. Saif has three plans, A, B and C, all is the same: ‘To live and die in Libya’. Their fulfilment may come sooner than he and his siblings realise.
My viewing for this week has included the World Matchplay Golf Championship. My enthusiasm for it has diminished, though, since my son pointed out that they have devalued the tournament by downgrading the final to 18 holes rather than the customary 36. That is akin to playing the FIFA World Cup as a five-a-side event, or the World Snooker Championships as best of nine frames. The one bright spot is that increases the chances of the venerable Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez, who can still knock spots off the field over the sprint distance, at age 47, but would have been struggling if he had to play four rounds on the last two days, as the old format dictated. At this stage, it’s a bit of a gunfight, but if he makes it through to the semis on Sunday morning, he may be the man to watch. I hope so, because the celebration will be epic, if he wins . . . although not here in Spain, sadly, where golf is still a minority sport, and where the great majority of his compadres have never heard of him.
I few years ago, at a book signing in Canada, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who leaned over me and asked conspiratorially, ‘Which are you, Rangers or the ‘tic?’ Had we been in Scotland, he would have asked me the same question in a different way, as in, ‘What school did you go to?’ or, slightly more subtle, ‘Did you play for the Boys’ Brigade?’
Some might say I would have been justified in telling him politely, that it was none of his ******* business, but I didn’t. Instead, I replied . . . politely . . . ‘Actually, I’m neither.’ He raised an eyebrow, said, ‘I don’t believe you,’ and walked away. Well, sir, if you’re still around, and you’re out there, it was true then and it still is.
That said, it does not prevent me from recognising and enjoying the achievements of Scottish clubs when they play in Europe, regardless of the colour of their shirt and the off-colour lyrics of their songs. When I channel-hopped from C5 to ESPN last night and caught Maurice Edu sliding in the last-gasp, Europa League tie-deciding goal, in the strange absence of the Sporting defence which seemed to be having a team meeting in the furthest corner of the penalty box, I was just as pleased as any of the fully fuelled guys in the stands in Lisbon. Given the venue for this year’s tournament final, it will be true for my wife and I if I borrow the following line from a well-known anthem: ‘If they go to Dublin we will follow on.’ Walter vs Kenny in the final in the Aviva Stadium? Difficult but doable.
. . . to all mis amigos who offered advice on how to sort out that annoying little bastard of a head cold and throat-tickling cough that’s been troubling me for the last few days. Remarkably every one of those cures involved whisky. I do not drink whisky, and haven’t for the last 35 years, but it did make me think. So I took the cures minus the cratur, (they also involved lemon and honey) but did not drink any other form of alcohol either. Bingo! I had my first full night’s sleep of the week. I’ve still got the cold, but I can handle that. Main thing is it’s reminded me of something I knew but had ignored of late. While alcohol makes me sleep for a while, at my age it does not let me sleep well, and if I have any at all, I do not wake refreshed. So, it’s back on the Vichy Catalan for a while .
Eileen and I have fallen into a routine. Every evening around six:thirty we go down to the bar in the Club Nautic and watch the sunset. We call it ‘going for our tea’, a phrase beloved of a late and much missed friend, used in his honour and memory. She has a glass of cava, and I have three beers, one, two three. (She sips, I drink.) ‘Siempre tres?’ the barman asked me a couple of evenings ago. ‘Si, siempre tres.’ These are not large beers, understand, and they are not what I would normally drink, but they don’t stock Saaz.
